1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable information communication terminal preferably for use as a portable information communication terminal capable of receiving wireless signals using a wireless paging system or pager or a portable information communication terminal connectable to an entertainment apparatus, an entertainment system, and a storage medium for use in an entertainment apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable information communication terminals (also referred to as PDA xe2x80x9cPersonal Digital Assistantxe2x80x9d) having a flat display unit such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) unit, e.g., personal computers, electronic notebooks, portable telephone sets, PHS terminals, pagers, etc. have been in widespread usage.
Entertainment apparatus for downloading programs from mass-storage storage mediums such as CD-ROMs to play games or playing back music pieces in CDs are also gaining growing popularity.
Conventional PDAs have not been considered for connection to industrial systems such as store automation systems for efficient retail store operation.
There has been a demand for automatically and simply entering individual items of information, such as individual PDA identification codes (e.g., production serial numbers), i.e., individual IDs, and individual user identification codes, i.e., user IDs, into industrial systems. However, no PDAs capable of meeting the demand have been available in the art.
Non-contact card systems such as bank card systems usually output only predetermined codes such as account numbers, but do not offer a function to allow users to select and output codes.
There have been not available any systems in which PDAs and entertainment systems are combined for connection to industrial systems.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a portable information communication terminal and an entertainment system which are easily capable of being combined with industrial systems.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a portable information communication terminal and an entertainment system which allow a portable information communication terminal capable of receiving wireless signals and an entertainment apparatus to complement each other to create a new function.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a portable information communication terminal, an entertainment system, and a storage medium which are capable of increasing the convenience of a portable information communication terminal and an entertainment apparatus.
According to an aspect of the present invention, a portable information communication terminal has a wireless signal receiver for receiving basic data relative to a particular code, and a code data converter for converting the basic data received by the wireless signal receiver into an optically readable code-related data. A display controller displays an optically readable particular code represented by the code-related data on the display screen of a display unit. The display unit of the portable information communication terminal can display the optically readable particular code corresponding to the received wireless signal.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a portable information communication terminal has a wireless signal receiver for receiving basic data relative to a particular code and related-information data including information related to the basic data, and a code data converter for converting the basic data received by the wireless signal receiver into an optically readable code-related data. The display controller displays an optically readable particular code represented by the code-related data and/or the related information data on the display screen of a display unit. The display unit of the portable information communication terminal can display the optically readable particular code corresponding to the received wireless signal and/or the related information data.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, a portable information communication terminal has a wireless signal receiver for receiving a plurality of basic data relative to a plurality of particular codes and a plurality of related-information data including information related to the plurality of basic data, respectively, a code data converter for converting the plurality of basic data received by the wireless signal receiver into respective optically readable code-related data, and a related-information selector for selecting a desired one of the plurality of related-information data displayed on the display screen. A display controller displays an optically readable particular code represented by the code-related data corresponding to the related-information data selected by the related-information selector, on the display screen of a display unit. Of the received plurality of related information data, an optically readable particular code relative to desired related information can automatically be selected on the display unit of the portable information communication terminal.
The code data converter may read the data relative to the individual identification code from a memory and converts the read data into optically readable individual identification code data when converting the basic data into the optically readable code-related data, and the display controller may display an optically readable individual identification code represented by the individual identification code data when displaying the optically readable particular code represented by the code-related data on the display screen of the display unit. Therefore, an individual identification code such as a product serial number or the like of the portable information communication terminal can be displayed as an optically readable code, as well as the optically readable particular code.
The code data converter may read the data relative to the user identification code from a memory and converting the read data into optically readable user identification code data when converting the basic data into the optically readable code-related data, and the display controller may display an optically readable user identification code represented by the user identification code data when displaying the optically readable particular code represented by the code-related data on the display screen of the display unit. Therefore, an identification code of the user of the portable information communication terminal can be displayed as an optically readable code, as well as the optically readable particular code.
The code data converter may read the data relative to the individual identification code and/or the data relative to the user identification code from the memory and converting the read data into optically readable individual identification code data and/or optically readable user identification code data when converting the basic data into the optically readable code-related data, and the display controller may display an optically readable individual identification code represented by the individual identification code data and/or an optically readable user identification code represented by the user identification code data when displaying the optically readable particular code represented by the code-related data on the display screen of the display unit.
The optically readable particular code may comprise a bar code. The bar code can be read by a bar-code reader which is part of the infrastructure of an existing store.
The bar code may comprise a bar code for use in discounting an article for sale. When the user takes the portable information communication terminal to the store, the user can purchase the article at a discount price, and hence can find the portable information communication terminal highly convenient to use.
An entertainment system according to an aspect of the present invention has an entertainment apparatus for reading and executing a program stored in a detachable storage medium, a display unit connected to the entertainment apparatus, for displaying an image, and a portable information communication terminal capable of receiving a wireless signal, for transmitting information to and receiving information from at least the entertainment apparatus. When the wireless signal is received by the portable information communication terminal, contents of the wireless signal are sent from the portable information communication terminal to the entertainment apparatus, and the entertainment apparatus reads data corresponding to the supplied contents of the wireless signal from the storage medium and displays an image represented by the read data on the display unit. With this arrangement, since the data corresponding to the supplied contents of the wireless signal received by the portable information communication terminal is displayed on the display unit, the entertainment system has a possibility to create a new business. The entertainment apparatus and the display unit may be integrally combined with each other or may be separate from each other.
If there are a plurality of data corresponding to the contents of the wireless signal received by the portable information communication terminal and supplied from the portable information communication terminal to the entertainment apparatus, then the entertainment apparatus may read the plurality of data from the storage medium and selectively display respective images represented by the read plurality of data on the display unit based on information from a manual controller. The user can select a desired image of plural images represented by the plural data corresponding to the contents of the wireless signal, with the manual controller.
If there are a plurality of data corresponding to the contents of the wireless signal received by the portable information communication terminal and supplied from the portable information communication terminal to the entertainment apparatus, then the entertainment apparatus may read the plurality of data from the storage medium and selectively display respective images represented by the read plurality of data on the display unit based on information from the portable information communication terminal. The user can select a desired image of plural images represented by the plural data corresponding to the contents of the wireless signal, with the portable information communication terminal. In this arrangement, no manual controller is required, and the entertainment apparatus and the portable information communication terminal may exchange information by way of wireless communications such as infrared communications.
An entertainment system according to another aspect of the present invention has an entertainment apparatus for reading and executing a program stored in a detachable storage medium, a display unit connected to the entertainment apparatus, for displaying an image, and a portable information communication terminal for transmitting information to and receiving information from the entertainment apparatus. The portable information communication terminal comprises a code data converter for converting basic data relative to a particular code stored in the storage medium and read by and supplied from the entertainment apparatus into an optically readable code-related data, a display unit having a display screen, and a display controller for displaying an optically readable particular code represented by the code-related data on the display screen of the display unit. The display unit of the portable information communication terminal that can be connected to the entertainment apparatus can display an optically readable particular code corresponding to basic data stored in the storage medium.
In the above entertainment system, the optically readable particular code may comprise a bar code. The bar code can be read by a bar-code reader which is part of the infrastructure of an existing store.
The bar code may comprise a bar code for use in discounting an article for sale. When the user takes the portable information communication terminal to the store, the user can purchase the article at a discount price, and hence can find the portable information communication terminal highly convenient to use.
A storage medium according to the present invention, which is detachably connected to an entertainment apparatus to which a portable information communication terminal capable of receiving a wireless signal can be connected, stores related-information data corresponding to data received as a wireless signal by the portable information communication terminal. When the portable information communication terminal and the entertainment apparatus are connected to each other, related-information data can be outputted from the entertainment apparatus to a display unit.